Movie Review: Pain & Gain

Much has been written in recent years on the apparent death of the American Dream. Corporate profits are at all time highs, wages have either remained stagnant or fallen behind, and unemployment continues to rise. More people have been leaving the workforce than are obtaining jobs, and the work that is available is increasingly part-time employment with no health insurance, stability, paid time off, or any other benefits. In light of all of this, how likely is it that most Americans will be able to attain the dream of controlling their own destiny? How can one obtain independence when they are not guaranteed a living wage on any type of long-term basis? How likely is it that the upcoming “Millenial” generation will be able to pay for all of the foreign wars and for Social Security/Medicare when most work part-time at Starbucks in spite of degrees?

These questions are all irrelevant, as the American Dream never dies. It just transforms and mutates into different forms across the decades, welcome to Michael Bay’s new classic, Pain and Gain.

You know your life has reached either a new high or a new low when you watch a film that includes a scene where a man takes an injection to the dick in order to obtain an erection, and you keep watching it. You don’t turn it off and do something better with your life. In my case, that may be because watching movies like this is my life, but whatever. I could have fired up Roadhouse instead, but I did not. I persevered, and was richly rewarded for my efforts. For Michael Bay has finally done it: he has made something other than a Transformers movie. Welcome back, Michael. Now go make Transformers 4 and disappoint me all over again.

Pain and Gain tells the story of three personal trainers who channel the forces of pandering self-help philosophies, sociopathic tendencies, and All-American bullshit in an effort to get rich or die trying. Mark Wahlberg plays the lead Douchebag, who schemes to kidnap a small business owner and force him to sign over his property and business by repeatedly beating him. Anthony Mackie plays Douchebag #2, who goes along for the ride with Wahlberg’s character so he can impress his overweight white girlfriend. Incidentally, he met his girlfriend while visiting a clinic for erectile issues. A classic love story if there ever was one. Finally, The Rock plays Douchebag #3, who is not really a douchebag, to be honest. He is a guy with pre-existing mental issues, a substance abuse problem, and possible gay feelings. He is the only sympathetic character of the three, and also the only one who avoids the death penalty.

Rounding out the cast are Tony Shalhoub as the small business owner, Ed Harris as a retired private detective, and Bar Paly as an exotic dancer who hangs out with the douchebags in exchange for money and/or drugs. Bar Paly’s character may be the most honest person in the whole movie. At one point, she has sex with Douchebag #1 outside a club while bent over the back of a parked car, and she engages in these sexual relations without care or judgment. By the way, the movie includes an educational bit where Wahlberg’s vigorous thrusting causes the parked car to roll forward and hit the back of the car in front of it. Always remember to put on your parking brake!!

Wahlberg’s character is a sociopath who commits kidnapping, murder, racketeering, and whatever else. Mackie’s character is pathetic, lame, and accidentally murders a woman by injecting her with too much horse tranquilizer. Both face considerable difficulty in using power tools for non-standard corpse-dismemberment purposes. In typical fashion, Wahlberg’s character blames the fact that the chainsaw was manufactured in China rather than his own incompetence. It’s never your fault, even when it is your fault. Modern America in a nutshell.

In the end, Bar Paly’s stripper character lives to have sex another day. Two of them sleeps with her repeatedly and all of them treat her like garbage, but in the end she overcomes them and prevails. She is the true embodiment of the American Dream. In fact, maybe she’s the middle class, and the douchebags are Corporate America, Wall Street, and the Federal Reserve. The same metaphor applies. Michael Bay really outdid himself here. We should be proud.

Overall, I learned quite a bit from this film. You don’t need to murder or steal from people to assert yourself. Beyond all the strip club scenes, the steroid injections, the beatings, the murders, the lies, the dildos, the cocaine, the body parts, the running from the cops, and the mispronunciations of the word “vagina”, there emerges one truth: America is whatever you want it to be.

Bottom line 'Pain & Gain' was a great movie. Check it out.

Pain & Gain - Movie Trailer